As the youngest chef in Switzerland to achieve three Michelin-star status for a restaurant, chef Andreas Caminada made a name for himself early on in his culinary career.
In Bangkok, he is synonymous with his Michelin-starred restaurant Igniv By Andreas Caminada at the St. Regis Hotel. Known for using simple ingredients and cooking them using different methods, chef Caminada proves that technique creates depth.
"My philosophy is that food needs to be tasty. Eating should be a journey of the senses that leaves a lasting impression and above all simply makes you happy. I want to create emotions with great food and great hospitality. It's always together. Food and hospitality have to have the same attention to detail," explains the chef.
The main restaurant chef Caminada refers to is the three Michelin-starred Schloss Schauenstein, known as "the castle", which is in the smallest town in the world, Fürstenau, in the Swiss Alpine canton of Graubünden.
"During Covid, we started to work on our garden in the castle, changing completely to permaculture, and we hired a farmer who has a couple of assistants. Sometimes my brother and father also help, along with some retired people, and our kitchen team also help out once a week. We have some 800 different varieties of vegetables, fruits and herbs. This is our source for ingredients, which makes more sense than ordering them and having them delivered the next day. We let them grow and get different ingredients. For example, broccoli is grown until it flowers and then you have a great product that you cannot just order from somewhere. This is why we spent more time cultivating the garden and focusing on it. We now have a USP that no one else has," says Caminada.
This led to the opening of Oz, which means "today" in the chef's mother tongue, the Rhaeto-Romanic language. Oz is across the road from the castle and shares the area with the garden, Casa Caminada, a down-to-earth 10-room inn with a wood-fired bakery and culinary cellar, and a small coffee roastery.
Swiss chef Andreas Caminada. Photos © IGNIV Bangkok by Andreas Caminada
"This is our new fundamental for our cuisine, like at our vegetarian restaurant. It's counter seating that we call hot spots. We go into the garden to see what we have a night or two before and diners at the counter get a fine dining experience, but only with fresh vegetables," explains chef Caminada.
From June to October, the castle gets most of its vegetables, flowers and herbs from the garden. "But if the kitchen needs cucumbers for a few weeks for a specific dish, then it is ordered from our local farmer, who is 200km away. It's just that our garden grows more special things, that sometimes can be used to finish off a dish, too."
The garden grows everything including special pumpkins, which came from Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns in the US. "I also have cactus leaves from Mexico that are growing now. We have the main plant and then we replant the small ones so we have a little family growing. Cactus was my discovery last year. The taste of a cactus is amazing," says the chef.
In the winter, they try to preserve a lot of things since the three greenhouses aren't heated.
"We have a huge cellar in Casa Caminada and that is where we store reserves. In 2021, we had 3.5 tonnes of vegetables in the cellar," he exclaims.
"I opened Schloss Schauenstein in 2003, so it's been 20 years that I have been doing this. I think we have great fundamentals and what we value the most are our employees. So I feel quite privileged professionally. But over the past 20 years times are changing. In Switzerland, people want to eat more vegetarian. They don't want to eat meat every day, they want to have more options. That's why we also decided to open a vegetarian restaurant.
Dishes at Oz, Andreas Caminada's vegetarian restaurant. Gaudenz Danuser
"At the castle, the menu is still very regional, but with the focus being on the garden, some of our dishes are very simple. To get a little bit more drama onto the menu, we add more flower food, especially in the summer. We find that balance, where at the beginning it's sour and maybe something cold, and then some spices, and then maybe something more fatty and more warm. We focus more on offering flavours rather than a particular type of cuisine," he explains.
About six years ago, the chef took a sabbatical, closed the castle, and travelled with his family.
"We ended up in Asia and since that trip, I fell in love with many more spices. Before this trip, spices were not always a priority on my menu. Since then, I always have had something spicy somewhere or maybe a few touches of spicy oil or ingredients that are a bit more spicy. I am really into spices now.
"I'm not following culture. I follow the culture at Casa Caminada, which is the guesthouse where we serve very typical regional food. We're open to flavours and we open them to the world, we just want to create amazing food and surprise our regular customers who've been coming for the last 20 years at the castle."
Along with managing numerous restaurants and publishing The Caminada Magazine, the chef started a foundation in 2015 called Fundaziun Uccelin to mentor up-and-coming chefs and service staff.
"Applicants have to have at least five years experience in service or in the kitchen and cannot be older than 35. But it's open to the whole world. It's not for us to gain new talent, it's for the industry," says Caminada.
"It's to give these 40 the chance to experience the world and open up their eyes and see what happens out there in the gastronomic world. The reason to start this was to give back to society. We got three stars 13 years ago, in 2010, and before that, I was chef of the year and was quite lucky. And then karma said to me, 'Hey, you need to give something back. You cannot just only take and make nice things, you need to make an effort and give something back. You're in a leadership position'.
"We don't stand still and everybody has to feel that they are always on the edge. It's because even as people, we are ever-evolving, it's not just the food."
Dishes at Oz, Andreas Caminada's vegetarian restaurant. Gaudenz Danuser
Schloss Schauenstein.
